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ICE and Palantir: US agents using health data to hunt illegal immigrants

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Re: ICE and Palantir: US agents using health data to hunt illegal immigrants

#111

Post by pc86 »

torben-friis wrote: post #64
rudhdb773b wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really mind private surveillance. It's when the data gets sold or otherwise obtained by state powers that it gets scary.

Why would non state actors be any less scary? Large companies colluding to reject potential hires due to surveilled ideology, sexual preferences of people in the closet filtered to scammers, hate groups learning about the family members of activists, insurance rejecting customers based on illegally obtained data… the list of risks is giant.

There is a reason that many of the rights enumerated in the Constitution, at some level, restrict the government (originally just the federal government, not even the states) and not private enterprises.

The go-to example is recording. Watch any "First Amendment auditor" video on YouTube (prepare yourself, most of them are a struggle to watch). I can walk into any government building, and as long as I'm in a publicly accessible area, I can record almost whatever and whoever I want. This includes otherwise private property that the government is leasing. I essentially cannot be kicked out unless I cause a disturbance as long as the location is open for public business. This is true for DMVs, county administrative buildings, police offices, jails, any government service with a public area and public hours.

On the flip side, if Target wants to ban recording in their stores, not only can they do so with zero risk of litigation, but if you get trespassed you can be fined or go to jail for a violation. The penalties get even harsher for the same trespassing crime if it's a private residence and not a business.

I'm sure we can come up with counterexamples, and maybe surveillance is the best one, but philosophically it's pretty easy to see why it's worse for the government to do a Bad Thing than for any individual or private enterprise to do the exact same Bad Thing.

Edit: I'd love to hear a justification as to why this is being downvoted because nothing in the content warrants that.

Re: ICE and Palantir: US agents using health data to hunt illegal immigrants

#112

Post by reenorap »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #90
reenorap wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought undocumented migrants weren’t allowed to use Medicare or Medicaid. How is that data useful to track them down, then?

HHS is broader than CMMS. Someone who was formerly legal could now be illegal. But more prominently, Miller and Noem have focused on illegally deporting pending asylum cases to juice their numbers. Those folks may show up in HHS (and IRS) data.

I’m against using health data to benefit ICE but what you’re saying doesn’t make sense. There needs to be a critical mass of data for it to be useful to Palantir. If they are passing Medicare and Medicaid data, does that mean that undocumented migrants are getting Medicare and Medicaid?

Re: ICE and Palantir: US agents using health data to hunt illegal immigrants

#113

Post by kurthr »

danesparza wrote: post #83
petterroea wrote: post #6

Private surveillance is so much more scary than regular government surveillance because they have every incentive to invent new ways of surveilling you that they then try to sell to governments, or private actors who want to influence the world. It's like classic government surveillance but every company you interacted with and every app you use may at some point turn on you and use your data against you, just becaus…

And then governments use this data, but can wash their hands of it saying "we didn't collect it"

Yes, retroactively manufactured cause for a warrant to find only the information you want.

Also, don't forget that profit maximization means selling to the highest bidder, which might not be US govt. Certainly, there is means, motive, and opportunity for individuals with access to sell this info to geopolitical adversaries, and it is BY FAR the easiest way for adversaries to acquire it.

It has happened before and it will happen again.

Re: ICE and Palantir: US agents using health data to hunt illegal immigrants

#114

Post by ardme »

gorgoiler wrote: post #79
lrvick wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has become quite clear in recent months that the the rule of law will not be enforced on the federal government or their allies.

I heard a law professor on NPR a few nights back saying how, at the executive level, the rule of law is dead and has been for some time. They cited Jan 6 but recognised how politically divisive that example was, so also gave the failure to enforce the TikTok ban as a less partisan example. If you take your hands off the wheel you can go a surprisingly long time before you crash. This hands-free period will have to co…

I remember a lot of stuff Bush did in the aftermath of 911 that was illegal. Anyone remember Snowden? And Obama did a drone strike on a US citizen. This has been going on a long time but maybe we used to play pretend better.

Re: ICE and Palantir: US agents using health data to hunt illegal immigrants

#115

Post by JumpCrisscross »

TSiege wrote: post #108
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Power of the executive is bestowed upon... one person This is the unitary executive theory. It’s a novel Constitutional theory that even this SCOTUS seems reluctant to honestly embrace.

They are not reluctant

> They are not reluctant

Read the Fed case transcripts.

Re: ICE and Palantir: US agents using health data to hunt illegal immigrants

#116

Post by augusto-moura »

gorgoiler wrote: post #79
lrvick wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has become quite clear in recent months that the the rule of law will not be enforced on the federal government or their allies.

I heard a law professor on NPR a few nights back saying how, at the executive level, the rule of law is dead and has been for some time. They cited Jan 6 but recognised how politically divisive that example was, so also gave the failure to enforce the TikTok ban as a less partisan example. If you take your hands off the wheel you can go a surprisingly long time before you crash. This hands-free period will have to co…

It might take some time to end though, executive power without laws is very close to dictatorships, and some dictatorships take a long time to dissolve (if they dissolve at all). They might not even have an end. As an example, look at Russia, from an empire to a dictatorship to an oligarchy. It never seemed full democracy and there's no hope of it changing in the next decade. There's a lot of speculation on what will happen at the end of Trumps presidency

Re: ICE and Palantir: US agents using health data to hunt illegal immigrants

#117

Post by pc86 »

andruby wrote: post #98
rudhdb773b wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would non state actors be any less scary? Non-state actors can't easily use violence to throw me in jail.

Blackwater, Wagner, Aegis, Triple Canopy, DynCorp, etc enter chat..

I wasn't aware Blackwater operates jails.

Re: ICE and Palantir: US agents using health data to hunt illegal immigrants

#118

Post by api »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #110
api wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starting way back in the early 2000s I was predicting all this and was consistently called nuts and paranoid. In retrospect what has actually happened with mass surveillance has been far worse than what the most unhinged conspiracy nut on shortwave radio or some crazy end times Geocities web site was predicting back then. The predictions of the conspiracy nuts were conservative. The big thing everyone got wrong was t…

> I was predicting all this You predicted HHS and CMMS having the address patients give them on HHS and CMMS forms? Like, sure. Good job. I predict the IRS has my address. > This is a devil's bargain Medicare (and the IRS) having your home address is a devil’s bargain?

I'm referring to mobile phones, software that constantly spies on you, location tracking, and mass data fusion without any regard for legal limitations or privacy.

Each individual data point seems normal or innocuous, but when you tie them all together and then leverage the tech panopticon you have an insane amount of detail on every person. There are no meaningful legal safeguards on how this data is used, especially when it's laundered through private contractors not subject to much oversight.

When you couple this with increasingly unlimited powers granted to law enforcement agencies, you get a situation where a system could decide you're a threat and some just comes and beats the shit out of you, takes your property, or shoots you, and you have little recourse.

The people cheering for this seem to think it'll never be used against them.

Re: ICE and Palantir: US agents using health data to hunt illegal immigrants

#119

Post by delecti »

thomaspinchone wrote: post #62
lrvick wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has become quite clear in recent months that the the rule of law will not be enforced on the federal government or their allies.

it's been quite clear for about 50 years now

Maybe, but there was also clearly an inflection point just over 12 months ago, and another 8 years prior.

Re: ICE and Palantir: US agents using health data to hunt illegal immigrants

#120

Post by sgarland »

reenorap wrote: post #86
SilverBirch wrote: post #37

If I'm reading this correctly, they're just straight up violating the law. They're sharing information with ICE under an obligation to share information of aliens, but they're actually sharing everyone's information in an effort to identify aliens. That seems like a pretty slam shut case if there were any mechanism to investigate and prosecute it.

I thought undocumented migrants weren’t allowed to use Medicare or Medicaid. How is that data useful to track them down, then?

If you go to an emergency room at a hospital which accepts Medicare (so, essentially all of them), you will be screened, and if in danger, medically stabilized (modulo difficult pregnancies in some states with anti-abortion laws, unfortunately).

I assume if you then fill paperwork out, they’d have your data - though I’m not sure why you’d agree to fill it out if you know you can’t pay, and that you’re just going to be discharged.

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